Donations menu

You are here

News & Stories

MSF frequently publishes updates, press releases, and other forms of communication about its work in roughly 70 countries around the world. See the list below for the most recent updates or search by location, topic, or year.

The volatile security situation in Bambari, in the Ouaka province of Central African Republic (CAR), is disrupting life for the town’s residents and impeding aid agencies’ efforts to respond to urgent health needs. While the barricades set up in recent days have been dismantled, the atmosphere in the area remains tense, and residents of Bambari live in fear. Violence and the armed robbery of civilians by undisciplined groups are still a daily occurrence.

MSF urges all parties to the Syrian conflict to facilitate the evacuation of people wounded in recent fierce clashes in the city of Aleppo, where the population has been trapped by fighting and aerial bombardments for months.

Alyona, 24, is from Debaltseve, a heavily contested city on the front line of the Ukrainian conflict. When fighting intensified in January, Alyona, her husband, and her two-year old son Gleb took shelter in the basement, but eventually the situation became unbearable and they fled the city on January 29, 2015.

The industrial city of Gorlovka in eastern Ukraine is under constant shelling, its hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded, and medical supplies have run out, leaving many doctors no choice but to stitch up patients with fishing line. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgeon Dr. Michael Roesch is supporting the Ukrainian surgical team in Hospital #2. Here, he describes his experience:

A little more than a year after the current conflict started in South Sudan, the humanitarian situation remains dire. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) nurse Siobhan O’Malley has provided health care in both Malakal and Bentiu, two of the towns hit hardest by the fighting. Here she reflects on working on the frontline, providing neutral and impartial medical care to those most in need.

For weeks, the East Ghouta rural area near Damascus, Syria, has been besieged by intense bombing on an almost daily basis. AA and AK are two paramedics from the besieged East Ghouta area near Damascus who asked to remain anonymous. Working with hospitals that MSF provides regular support to, they describe their struggle to respond after the bombing of a public square on January 23.

For weeks, the East Ghouta rural area near Damascus, Syria, has been besieged by intense bombing on an almost daily basis. Dr. N, director of a MSF-supported hospital in a besieged area of the East Ghouta suburbs near Damascus who has asked to remain anonymous, describes the medical response to the horrific bombing of a crowded square on 23 January.

Djamilou, from the Central Africa Republic (CAR), has been working as a logistician for Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Niger. He came to Paris between assignments to tell us the story of the violence and plight his family—now scattered across three different countries—faced as they fled from CAR. Djamilou’s testimony illustrates only too well the suffering endured by our Central African teams.

Irina Savchuk is staying with her children at a center for displaced people in the town of Konstantinovka. The center, formerly a shelter for homeless people, was under reconstruction when the conflict started in eastern Ukraine. Although it wasn’t yet finished, the local authorities decided to open the centef for people who had to flee the fighting in nearby areas. It’s now run by local people and eight families live in the center, sharing the small kitchen and old bathroom. Irina shares her story and MSF’s psychologist Elena Bogatskaya talks about the enormous emotional impact of the violence.

Boko Haram’s territorial gains in Nigeria continue apace. On Sunday, January 25, the Islamist organization took Monguno, some twenty kilometers from lake Chad, and launched an offensive against Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, 130 kilometers to the south. After several hours of fighting, Nigerian soldiers managed to stave off the attack.